FEMA trailer started arriving in Broome and Tioga counties on Sunday. More are expected to arrive in the coming weeks. / DEBBIE SWARTZ / STAFF PHOTO

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VESTAL -- Dorothy Stepanovsky was thrilled a FEMA trailer arrived at her Pearl Street home. Her son, Brian, said it was long overdue.

"I called every day for this FEMA trailer," he said.

Even with daily calls to the White House, and the offices of U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and state Sen. Thomas W. Libous, R-Binghamton, it took more than nine weeks for the temporary housing to arrive. "I'm very mad," Brian Stepanovsky said. "I was pretty nasty with Schumer, Libous and the White House."

The three-bedroom trailer will remain unoccupied until the end of the week as Federal Emergency Management Agency personnel get it ready. In the meantime, the family continues work on their gutted Twin Orchards home, which Dorothy Stepanovsky purchased in 1955 at a time when she had two children and twins on the way.

Along with thousands across the region, Stepanovsky filled out paperwork with FEMA. Then came the waiting game. Two FEMA trailers are in Twin Orchards, where Stepanovsky lives, and a third is in Castle Gardens. But a drive through other flooded neighborhoods throughout the region shows few trailers have been provided as of Tuesday.

According to FEMA spokesman Clifton Jones, the exact number of units approved for the area is still to be determined.

"These are fluid numbers in that they are ever-evolving," he said.

In 2006, it took about six weeks for trailers to be delivered to flood-affected homeowners. That year, 238 trailers were allocated to Broome County families, according to a Press & Sun-Bulletin report.

Though he is upset about having to wait so long, Stepanovsky said he's glad the housing finally came.

Before the trailer was delivered, the family considered moving South for a few months.

"We've been living different places," she said. "We didn't know what to do."

Unlike the camper-style trailers that FEMA supplied in 2006, the new trailers are similar to a mobile home. Stepanovsky's unit has three bedrooms, a full bathroom, a living room and a kitchen with a dining area. Other units have two bedrooms.

Brian Stepanovsky made calls Monday to get the utilities turned on.

The trailers used after the June 2006 flood offered cramped quarters. They had to be winterized by FEMA officials in October 2006 to get families through the cold months.

The FEMA housing units that will come to the region this time are fully winterized and include 400-square-foot "park models," with two bedrooms and one bathroom, and 840-square-foot "mobile home models" -- like the Stepanovskys' -- which are 14-by-60 feet, with three bedrooms and one bathroom.

The units include a stove, refrigerator and microwave, and are furnished with a dining set, living room set, beds and clothing drawers.

Jones said the units meet requirements that mandate they must be able to maintain a constant inside temperature of 75 degrees.

The new trailers began arriving from staging areas in Cobleskill and Arkansas after officials worked through bureaucratic hurdles that would have prevented FEMA from placing the units in floodplains.

"The problem initially was that most of the housing was in a floodplain and we couldn't put it there," Jones said. "Now that those requirements have been met, that's why you have the masses of THUs (temporary housing units) coming in more than previously."

Jones said occupants may reside in FEMA trailers for up to 18 months, but the length of occupancy is decided on a case-by-case basis.

Disaster victims may apply for FEMA aid until the Dec. 15 deadline, so it is unknown how many units will ultimately be dispatched to southern New York.

"As long as there's still a need," Jones said, "they'll continue to bring them in until a need has been satisfied."